CN115997396A

CN115997396A - Providing on-demand localized services via hosted networks in fifth generation (5G) systems

Info

Publication number: CN115997396A
Application number: CN202180046340.6A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 廖青毓; T·吕岑基兴; A·科勒卡; P·贾殷
Original assignee: Intel Corp
Current assignee: Intel Corp
Priority date: 2020-10-30
Filing date: 2021-10-28
Publication date: 2023-04-21
Also published as: WO2022094068A1

Abstract

Various embodiments herein relate to providing on-demand localized services via a hosted network and using different service operators. Other embodiments may be disclosed or claimed.

Description

Providing on-demand localized services via hosted networks in fifth generation (5G) systems

Cross Reference to Related Applications

The present application claims priority from U.S. provisional patent application No. 63/108,199, filed 10/30/2020.

Technical Field

Various embodiments may relate generally to the field of wireless communications. For example, some embodiments may involve providing on-demand (on-demand) localized services via a hosted network and using different service operators.

Background

In 3GPP SA1, S1-203276 is a project proposal for Providing Access Localization Services (PALS). The use cases considered are that 5G networks may be deployed or provided locally in certain places or areas, such as stadiums, arenas, airports, university campuses, convention centers, etc.; the network may provide services for temporary events and provide local users with access to the services on demand. Such services may be provided by 5G network operators, other mobile operators, or third party content providers, creating additional revenue opportunities. Some examples include: match video overlay and replay/statistics at stadium (e.g., provided by sports content provider); high quality multimedia telephony (MMTEL)/streaming media for campuses or remote real-time events/concerts; advanced connections for real-time gaming or augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) services on a gaming exhibition; or on-demand services for movie theatres, commercials for shopping malls, etc. Embodiments of the present disclosure address these and other issues.

Drawings

Embodiments will be readily understood by the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. To facilitate this description, like reference numerals designate like structural elements. The embodiments are illustrated by way of example, and not by way of limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings.

Fig. 1 illustrates an example of an overall non-roaming reference architecture (service-based representation) for a policy and charging control framework for a 5G system in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 2 illustrates an example of an overall non-roaming reference architecture (reference point representation) for a policy and charging control framework for a 5G system in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 3 illustrates an example of a UE configuration update procedure for transparent UE policy delivery in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of a hosted network providing access localized services to UEs of other service providers in a BC network according to an intelligent contract-based SLA, according to various embodiments.

Fig. 5 illustrates an example of a hosted network providing access localized services to UEs of other service providers in a BC network according to an intelligent contract-based SLA, according to various embodiments.

Fig. 6 illustrates an example of a graph of building relationships between network operators using an application layer method in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 7 schematically illustrates a wireless network in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 8 schematically illustrates components of a wireless network in accordance with various embodiments.

Fig. 9 is a block diagram illustrating components capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and performing any one or more of the methods discussed herein, according to some example embodiments.

FIG. 10 depicts an example process for practicing the various embodiments discussed herein.

FIG. 11 depicts another example process for practicing various embodiments.

FIG. 12 depicts another example process for practicing various embodiments.

Detailed Description

The following detailed description refers to the accompanying drawings. The same reference numbers may be used in different drawings to identify the same or similar elements. In the following description, for purposes of explanation and not limitation, specific details are set forth such as particular structures, architectures, interfaces, techniques, etc. in order to provide a thorough understanding of the various aspects of the various embodiments. However, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art having the benefit of this disclosure that the various aspects of the various embodiments may be practiced in other examples that depart from these specific details. In certain instances, descriptions of well-known devices, circuits, and methods are omitted so as not to obscure the description of the various embodiments with unnecessary detail. For the purposes of this document, the phrases "A or B" and "A/B" mean (A), (B) or (A and B).

The use cases described above require enhanced support by the 5G network for UEs to access specific services provided by service providers (including PLMN or NPN (non-public network) operators, or third party service/content providers) via the 5G service network in an on-demand, temporary manner and/or at specific locations. In particular, embodiments herein provide solutions that enable support for the following objectives:

-enabling the user/UE to access the hosted network and the specific service without prior relation to the hosted network;

- [ managed network discovery ]: enabling the user/UE to discover the availability of a particular target network and a particular service through the hosted network;

- [ concurrent access ]: enabling the user/UE to concurrently use the specific target services provided through the hosted network and the conventional services provided by the HPLMN of the user/UE;

in some embodiments, blockchain (BC) techniques may be used to implement smart contract-based service level agreements (SC-SLAs) for specific occasions (e.g., time and location) between a network operator providing access to localized services and other network providers (also known as service providers described in this disclosure), which may be PLMNs or SNPNs.

Various embodiments herein provide the following solutions for enhancing localized services via a hosted network to on-demand localized services that may be provided by different service operators, including hosted network operators as well as third parties (including application providers of other network operators and third parties):

solution 1: an SLA instance based on an intelligent contract for providing localized services as on-demand localized services;

solution 2: service requirements to achieve on-demand service support for localized services;

solution 3: on-demand service configuration and subscription;

solution 4: on-demand service selection and billing;

solution 5: concurrent services via managed network a;

solution 6: examples of concurrent traffic for different networks;

solution 7: the service provider is a content provider without its own network.

Fig. 1 and 2 show an example of the overall architecture of a policy and charging control framework for use in a 5G system in terms of both service and reference point based representations. Specifically, fig. 1 shows an example of an overall non-roaming reference architecture (service-based representation) for a policy and charging control framework for a 5G system, while fig. 2 shows an example of an overall non-roaming reference architecture (reference point representation) for a policy and charging control framework for a 5G system.

Fig. 3 shows an example illustrating how UE policies may be transferred from the PCF to the UE by using a UE configuration update procedure. Specifically, fig. 3 illustrates an example of a UE configuration update procedure for transparent UE policy delivery.

Currently, all mobile services require an in-place SLA among network operators and service providers. Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to the application of BC technology in the telecommunications field and help enable a 5G network to provide on-demand services with PALS services available only in specific occasions (e.g., time and location) for localized services that do not require intermediaries to participate in SLA creation procedures according to smart contract-based SLAs.

Aspects of the various embodiments may be based on the following assumptions:

the proposed API is a standardized northbound API of the interface between the application of the service provider defined by 3GPP (e.g. BC user) and the 5G network;

a localized service level agreement may be established in the application layer between a plurality of service providers. The application server of the service provider may use the northbound API to provision the required network configuration or service policies by:

o uses the 3GPP northbound API over the N33 interface between AF and NEF,

o or directly use the N5 interface between the AF and PCF (if the AF is in the trusted domain).

Some embodiments may include supporting two interfaces for all cases, as shown by the reference architecture in fig. 4.

For example, the hosting network operator may allocate policies for the localization services of the service provider to the PCF or UDM via the NEF by N33 at the hosting network.

For example, the hosting network operator may provide AF (application function) information to the service provider in the SLA of the localization service to allow the service provider to provision the PCF or UDM with the required localization policy via NEF at the hosting network through N33.

In some embodiments, the hosted network provides access to localized services that may be owned by the hosted network operator or in collaboration with third parties, including other network operators and application service providers. The localization services include connections provided by the hosted network and services provided at the data network via connections provided by the hosted network.

Solution 1: smart contract-based SLA for PALS services

SP-A, SP-B, SP-C is a network operator of PLMN or SNPN

This use case is motivated by a Blockchain (BC) technique that allows non-trusted members in a distributed peer-to-peer BC network to interact with each other in a verifiable manner without a trusted intermediary. In particular, the use of smart contracts and scripts residing on blockchains may allow for multi-step processes to be performed automatically in the telecommunications domain where an SLA needs to be established between network operators for interoperability. Such smart contract-based service enablement allows network operators to automate the workflow of building SLAs in a cryptographically verifiable manner and enables 5GS to facilitate sharing of services and network resources among network operators and configuring the network accordingly to create localized services provided via a hosted network.

In this use case we provide an example describing how BC technology can be applied in the field of telecommunications and, most importantly, how a 5G network can support the provision of localized services according to an intelligent contract based SLA.

As shown in fig. 5, an intelligent contract-based SLA (SC-SLA) is shared between service operators using private/licensed BC networks, where the service operator's network (denoted as SP-A, SP-B, SP-C) may be a PLMN or SNPN and the service provider is a BC member of the private/licensed BC network (denoted as BC-A, BC-B, BC-C). SP-a deploys 5G network-a as a hosted network that provides access to localized services (PALS services) at specific times and locations. SP-A, SP-B and SP-C have no in-place SLA for the localized service provided by SP-a's hosting network-a.

The authorized UEs of SP-a may use localized services. Furthermore, through the SC-SLA, the localized service may be used by authorized UEs of SP-B and SP-C of the localized service based on the SC-SLA subscription. Further, SP-A, SP-B and SP-C may provide their own on-demand localization services using PDU sessions hosting IP connections provided by network-a for authenticated UEs according to the localization SLAs (e.g., SC-SLAs) established by the BC network.

For example, the BC-A application user of SP-A deploys se:Sub>A smart contract-A on the BC network for localized services, and the smart contract-A allows:

BC-se:Sub>A application users create and terminate network-se:Sub>A services for localized services vise:Sub>A se:Sub>A hosted network,

BC application users of other service providers (e.g., SP-B, SP-C, etc.) subscribe to localized services from the hosting network operator based on SC-SLAs contained in the smart contract-a deployed by the hosting network operator SP-a,

BC application subscribers of all service providers publish their supported on-demand localization services via IP-connected PDU sessions provided by the hosting network-a based on the localization service policies proposed by the publishing service provider in the smart contract-a.

BC application subscribers of all service providers (e.g., SP-A, SP-B, SP-C, etc.) subscribe to the published on-demand localization service and corresponding on-demand localization service policies via a hosted network that provides access to the localization service. The dedicated services are provided on demand, which may be provided by other service providers or the home operator of the UE.

BC-A application users obtain information from smart contracts-A, e.g

For localized services: the network ID of the subscriber (e.g., SP-B network ID (e.g., PLMN ID or PLMN id+npn ID)), the network settings of the subscriber for user authentication (e.g., UDM address of SP-B network).

For published on-demand localization services: network IDs of service providers that provide on-demand localized services via the managed network (e.g., PLMN IDs or PLMN ids+npn IDs), dedicated PDU session information (e.g., S-nsai, DNN, application IDs, qoS requirements), urs rules (referring to traffic and routing descriptors in TS 23.502), desired specific services provided by network-a, etc. The application ID is used to represent the association of the application with the required network slice and DNN. In one combination of S-nsai and DNN, different on-demand localization services may have more than one application ID.

The BC-se:Sub>A application user (i.e., the hosting network operator) creates the localized service over the BC network using the smart contract-se:Sub>A vise:Sub>A the hosting network and provides the localized service configuration and SP-se:Sub>A network information (e.g., an AF (application function) address) for other service providers to allocate or modify or update the required service configuration at the hosting network. Alternatively, provisioning or modifying or updating the required service configuration at the hosting network may be performed by SP-a according to an intelligent contract-based SLA between SP-a and SP-B/SP-C in the application layer.

BC-B and BC-C application users (e.g., third parties, which may be network operators and application service providers) may subscribe to the localized service for their UEs using a smart contract with a hosted network operator-a on the BC network and configure their UEs to localize the service.

In this solution, a temporary SLA constrained by a particular service time and area using a blockchain technology based on smart contracts is an example for establishing temporary relationships between hosted network operators and third party service providers (which include other network operators and third party application providers). The scope of the present disclosure does not limit the use of intelligent contract-based blockchain techniques for SLAs. It is within the scope of the present disclosure that a similar automated electronic agreement (e-agreement) may be provided for use in applications that build temporary SLAs and apply to network configurations at a hosted network, as shown in fig. 6, where SP-a/SP-B/SP-C applications are used to apply the general descriptions of users.

Solution 2: service requirements for enabling support of localized services via a hosted network based on smart contract-based SLAs between service providers

In some embodiments, the 5G network of the hosting network operator providing access to the localization service may enable the following mechanisms: the following network policies of other service providers are configured for authenticating UEs that they attempt to register with and use their home network services via a host:

UDM address information for authenticating roaming UE through its home network

Traffic routing policies and network configurations, such as network addresses for target service operators (e.g., N3IWF, SMF, UPF, PSA, etc.), for routing the UE's traffic from the managed network to its home network subscribing to the localization service via the managed network when the UE's home network is not available.

Alternatively, the 5G network of the hosting network operator providing access to the localization service should enable the appropriate APIs for other service providers subscribing to the localization service from the hosting network operator to configure the following network policies of the other service providers for authenticating UEs that they attempt to register with and use their home network services via the hosting network:

UDM address information for authenticating UE through its home network

Traffic routing policies and network configurations at the hosting network, such as the network address of the target service operator (e.g., N3IWF, SMF, UPF, PSA, etc.), for routing traffic of the serving UE to its home network subscribing to the localization service via the hosting network when the home network of the UE is not available.

In some embodiments, the 5G managed network may enable appropriate APIs to open network functions based on the following network configuration:

Spectrum resources, RATs, including 3GPP or non-3GPP access

Network slice allocation for these network operators

A default PDU session for IP connection, including S-NSSAI and DNN,

specific network service capabilities (e.g., location services, time synchronization, service function chain)

Further, the 5G managed network may enable an appropriate API to open network identification information for providing access localization services to other service operators, including other network operators and third party application providers, in particular situations (e.g., time and location), where the network identification information may include:

hosted network ID for UE discovery of hosted networks

One or more localized service group IDs representing all or part of the service operators (SPs) as subscribers to the localized service via the managed network

Configured ID for home network authentication

On-demand service capability for other service providers

The 5G managed network providing access to the localized services may support appropriate APIs for other service providers to provision the following information related to PDU session parameters for IP connections for their on-demand localized services via the managed network, for example:

Service identification of on-demand localization services via SP-B hosting network and its corresponding human-readable identification.

PDU session required for IP connection parameters, network slices, DNN and QoS parameters,

application information

The urs rules for traffic routing policies for on-demand localization services via managed networks,

on-demand localization service provider ID

Services of a particular hosted network required by the application, such as location-based services, time-resilient services, multicast and broadcast services, chains of service functions, etc.

Network configuration for routing traffic to access on-demand localized services at a data network of a service provider hosting network via a hosting network.

Information of the localized service subscribers of the third party network operator, such as the service provider network ID (PLMN ID or PLMN id+npn ID, or the ID of the service provider that can identify the on-demand localized service (of SP-B) via the managed network, for billing purposes.

A 5G network of hosted networks that provides access to localized services via the hosted network may be capable of allowing a UE to manually select qualified on-demand localized services that are provided by other service providers and routed via the hosted network.

A 5G network of a hosted network that provides access to localized services via the hosted network may be capable of collecting billing records for on-demand localized services based on services and billing policies provided by third party service providers, including the hosted network operator, other network operators, and third party application providers.

A 5G network of a hosted network that provides access to localized services via the hosted network may be able to support PDU sessions required for IP connections at the hosted network in order for a UE to use its home network services and localized services provided by the hosted network or other service providers at the same time.

A UE configured with localization service authorization may be able to use both home network services and localization services via a hosted network when only the hosted network is available, where the localization services are provided by the hosted network or by third party service providers (including other network operators and application service operators) via the hosted network providing access to the localization services.

A UE configured with localized service authorization via the hosted network may be able to use both the home network service directly and localized services provided by the hosted network or a third party (including other network operators and application service providers) via the hosted network when both the home network and the hosted network are available.

Solution 3: on-demand localized service configuration and subscription

According to solution 3, within the smart contract, the BC-B application user of SP-B may publish an on-demand localized service with a service and billing policy via the SP-A's hosted network. Other BC application users that subscribe to the hosting network that provides the localization service are eligible to subscribe to all published on-demand localization services.

[ providing SP-B network configuration for on-demand localized services at SP-B via hosted networks ]

The BC-B application user of SP-B may request via the API that the network of SP-B configure the service policies of the new on-demand localized service using the IP connection provided by the hosting network-a at a specific time and location and obtain the service configuration from the SP-B network (which may be subscribed to by a third party service operator), including:

-service identification of the localization service of SP-B and corresponding human readable identification thereof.

Network configuration for routing on-demand localization services from the hosting network to the network of SP-B, such as N3IWF, SP-B SMF and UPF addresses.

Required IP connection parameters such as S-NSSAI, DNN, required QoS parameters, etc.

Application ID of on-demand localization service of SP-B via managed network

The application ID is used to indicate the association of the application with the required network slice and DNN. In one combination of S-nsai and DNN, different on-demand localization services may have more than one application ID.

The urs rules (refer to traffic and route descriptors in TS 23.502) for all traffic routed to the SP-B localization service,

services of a specific hosted network required by the application, such as location-based services, timing resilience services, multicast and broadcast services, service function chains, etc.

[ SP-A network configuration for on-demand localized services provided by SP-B via hosted network ]

For each on-demand localized service, the BC-A application user of SP-A or the BC-B application user of SP-B assigns service parameters to the SP-A's network vise:Sub>A the API, including:

on-demand localized service provider ID of SP-B, e.g. PLMN ID or PLMN ID+NPN ID, or ID that can identify the service provider

Service policies for on-demand localization services

Subscriber information, such as service provider ID (PLMN ID or PLMN id+npn ID, or ID of service provider that can identify on-demand localized services (of SP-B)) for billing purposes.

-service identification of on-demand localization services via SP-B of the hosting network and corresponding human readable identification thereof.

Network configuration for routing on-demand localization services from the hosting network-a to the network of SP-B, such as N3IWF, SP-B SMF and UPF addresses.

Application ID of on-demand services of SP-B via managed network

A urs rule (referring to traffic and route descriptors in TS 23.502) for routing to the SP-B network via the managed network to provide all traffic of the on-demand service,

services of a specific hosted network required by the application, such as location-based services, time-resilient services, multicast and broadcast services, chains of service functions, etc.

Solution 4: on-demand service selection and charging

According to solutions 4 and 6, after successful user authentication by the home network of the UE of SP-C, the hosting network may establish a default PDU session for the IP connection to present the on-demand localized service list to the UE via the hosting network. The hosting network may also instruct the home network to send the updated urs rules to UEs associated with the on-demand localization service via the hosting network.

The on-demand localized service list presented to the UE is subscribed to by the home network operator of the UE. It allows the UE to select and use on-demand localization services via a managed network-a that provides the required PDU session for the IP connection using S-nsai, DNN and QoS parameters.

The hosting network may collect billing records, such as usage of applications, etc., and provide to the home network operator of the UE based on the services and billing policies provided by the on-demand localized service provider in the smart contract.

Solution 5: concurrent services via managed network a

According to solutions 7 and 5, the ue may simultaneously use the managed network of the PDU session of SP-a for IP connection to use its SP-C home network service and the selected on-demand localization service provided by SP-B.

Based on service parameters configured in the hosted network-a, including service and traffic routing policies for on-demand localized services, the hosted network may forward traffic of the UE between the hosted network and the network of SP-B. This feature enables traffic routing via the hosted network using local "off-hook" on-demand localization services provided for third parties.

The hosted network may forward traffic of the UE for an on-demand localization service provided by SP-a between the UE and the hosted network. This feature enables traffic routing at the managed network using local breakout.

The hosting network may forward traffic of the UE between its service provider's home network (e.g., SP-C) and the hosting network-a. This feature enables home routing traffic routing via the managed network.

The UE may concurrently use any combination of these on-demand localization services via the hosted network, where the localization services may be provided by its home network, the local hosted network, and the third party service provider.

Solution 6: example

Only once a year to allow guests to enjoy three-day adventure events on board the boat. SP-a deploys a hosted network-a that provides access to localized services via the hosted network and creates a smart contract with a localized service level agreement for sharing localized services with application members of the service provider (e.g., SP-A, SP-B and SP-C) using blockchain technology at the private data network. Meanwhile, the network of SP-B is not available on the island, while the network of SP-C is available only in some areas. Both SP-B and SP-C subscribe to the localization service from SP-a for their UEs to access the hosted network and use on-demand localization services that the hosted network provider or a third party (other network operator or application service provider) can provide.

In addition, SP-a deploys on-demand localization services for streaming real-time video and immersive media in different areas. SP-B also provides on-demand localization services such as games, on-demand movies, etc., via hosted networks.

When a scheduling event begins, hosted network-a begins provisioning localized services via the hosted network based on the localized SLAs and broadcasting relevant information for UEs in the hosted network-a coverage.

UE-C has a subscription to SP-C. SP-C subscribed to the SP-a's localization service configures its UE via the SP-a's hosting network to localize the authorization of the service.

Use case a, managed network-a is available for routing traffic to the home network of the UE

When a UE-C requests to use the home network service of the UE-C, the UE-C configured with the localization service authorization discovers that only SP-a networks are available, and then after successful user authentication through its SP-C's home network, selects the hosting network to use its SP-C's home network service via the hosting network-a.

Case B, network-A and SP-C are both available

When both SP-a and SP-C networks are available, the UE-C configured to localize the service may select the SP-a hosted network based on the UE configuration and use both SP-a and SP-C networks for different services at the same time, e.g., use SP-a network connections for on-demand localization services to interact with holograms of live animals in the region (which enables specific network-a services) and use SP-C home network connections to share real-time video in social media.

Use case C, network A is available for routing SP-A and SP-B services

The user of the UE-C may select a localized on-demand service of SP-B for viewing on-demand movies and use the on-demand localized service of SP-a to view the night lives of live wild animals in the area. The SP-a managed network establishes the required PDU session for the IP connection and routes the UE-C traffic to the local SP-a and SP-B networks, respectively.

Solution 7: the service provider is a content provider without own network

According to solution 6, sp-D is a third party application service provider without its own network. The SP-D may register as a BC application user of the BC-network for the smart contract-based SLA.

SP-D may subscribe to the localization service with hosting network-a and publish its on-demand localization service via hosting network-a.

The SP-a hosting network may allocate service configurations (S-nsai, DNN, application ID, urs rules (referring to traffic and route descriptors in TS 23.502), application server addresses, etc.) for service policies, charging policies, traffic routing policies, and PDU session parameters for IP connections.

If the SP-C home network of the UE subscribes to the localization service of the hosted network-A, it may select the on-demand localization service provided by SP-D.

The UE may pay for use of the SP-D service through its SP-C home network or online payment means.

System and implementation

7-8 illustrate various systems, devices, and components that may implement aspects of the disclosed embodiments.

Fig. 7 illustrates a network 700 in accordance with various embodiments. Network 700 may operate in a manner consistent with 3GPP technical specifications for LTE or 5G/NR systems. However, the example embodiments are not limited thereto, and the described embodiments may be applied to other networks that benefit from the principles described herein, such as future 3GPP systems, and the like.

The network 700 may include a UE 702, and the UE 702 may include any mobile or non-mobile computing device designed to communicate with the RAN 704 via an over-the-air connection. The UE 702 may be communicatively coupled with the RAN 704 through a Uu interface. The UE 702 may be, but is not limited to, a smart phone, tablet computer, wearable computer device, desktop computer, laptop computer, in-vehicle infotainment device, in-vehicle entertainment device, instrument cluster, head mounted display device, in-vehicle diagnostic device, dashboard mobile device, mobile data terminal, electronic engine management system, electronic/engine control unit, electronic/engine control module, embedded system, sensor, microcontroller, control module, engine management system, networking appliance, machine type communication device, M2M or D2D device, ioT device, etc.

In some embodiments, the network 700 may include multiple UEs directly coupled to each other via a side link interface. The UE may be an M2M/D2D device that communicates using a physical side link channel (e.g., without limitation, PSBCH, PSDCH, PSSCH, PSCCH, PSFCH, etc.).

In some embodiments, UE 702 may additionally communicate with AP 706 via an over-the-air connection. The AP 706 may manage WLAN connections that may be used to offload some/all network traffic from the RAN 704. The connection between the UE 702 and the AP 706 may conform to any IEEE 802.11 protocol, where the AP 706 may be wireless fidelity

And a router. In some embodiments, the UE 702, RAN 704, and AP 706 may utilize cellular-WLAN aggregation (e.g., LWA/LWIP). cellular-WLAN aggregation may involve the UE 702 being configured by the RAN 704 to utilize cellular radio resources and WLAN resources.

RAN 704 may include one or more access nodes, such as AN 708.AN 708 may terminate the air interface protocol for UE 702 by providing access stratum protocols, including RRC, PDCP, RLC, MAC and L1 protocols. In this way, the AN 708 may enable a data/voice connection between the CN 720 and the UE 702. In some embodiments, AN 708 may be implemented in a separate device or as one or more software entities running on a server computer that is part of, for example, a virtual network (which may be referred to as a CRAN or virtual baseband unit pool). AN 708 is referred to as BS, gNB, RAN node, eNB, ng-eNB, nodeB, RSU, TRxP, TRP, etc. The AN 708 may be a macrocell base station or a low power base station for providing a femtocell, picocell, or other similar cell with a smaller coverage area, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth than the macrocell.

In embodiments where the RAN 704 includes multiple ANs, they may be coupled to each other via AN X2 interface (if the RAN 704 is AN LTE RAN) or AN Xn interface (if the RAN 704 is a 5G RAN). The X2/Xn interface (which may be separated into control/user plane interfaces in some embodiments) may allow the AN to communicate information related to handoff, data/context transfer, mobility, load management, interference coordination, etc.

The ANs of the RAN 704 may each manage one or more cells, groups of cells, component carriers, etc. to provide AN air interface for network access to the UE 702. The UE 702 may be simultaneously connected with multiple cells provided by the same or different ANs of the RAN 704. For example, the UE 702 and the RAN 704 may use carrier aggregation to allow the UE 702 to connect with multiple component carriers, each component carrier corresponding to a Pcell or Scell. In a dual connectivity scenario, the first AN may be a primary node providing AN MCG and the second AN may be a secondary node providing AN SCG. The first/second AN may be any combination of eNB, gNB, ng-enbs, etc.

RAN 704 may provide the air interface over licensed spectrum or unlicensed spectrum. To operate in unlicensed spectrum, a node may use LAA, eLAA, and/or feLAA mechanisms with PCell/Scell based on CA technology. Prior to accessing the unlicensed spectrum, the node may perform medium/carrier sense operations based on, for example, a Listen Before Talk (LBT) protocol.

In a V2X scenario, the UE 702 or AN 708 may be or act as AN RSU, which may refer to any traffic infrastructure entity for V2X communications. The RSU may be implemented in or by a suitable AN or a fixed (or relatively fixed) UE. An RSU implemented in or by: for a UE, it may be referred to as a "UE-type RSU"; for enbs, it may be referred to as "eNB-type RSUs"; for gNB, it may be referred to as "gNB-type RSU"; etc. In one example, the RSU is a computing device coupled with radio frequency circuitry located at the roadside that provides connectivity support to passing vehicle UEs. The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitry for storing intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, media, and applications/software for sensing and controlling ongoing vehicle and pedestrian traffic. The RSU may provide very low latency communications required for high speed events (e.g., collision avoidance, traffic alerts, etc.). Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may provide other cellular/WLAN communication services. The components of the RSU may be enclosed in a weather-proof enclosure suitable for outdoor installation, and may include a network interface controller for providing a wired connection (e.g., ethernet) to a traffic signal controller or backhaul network.

In some embodiments, the RAN 704 may be an LTE RAN 710 with an eNB (e.g., eNB 712). The LTE RAN 710 may provide an LTE air interface with the following characteristics: SCS of 15 kHz; a CP-OFDM waveform for DL and an SC-FDMA waveform for UL; turbo codes for data and TBCCs for control; etc. The LTE air interface may rely on CSI-RS for CSI acquisition and beam management; PDSCH/PDCCH DMRS for PDSCH/PDCCH demodulation; CRS for cell search and initial acquisition, channel quality measurement and channel estimation for coherent demodulation/detection at UE. The LTE air interface may operate on the sub-6GHz band.

In some embodiments, the RAN 704 may be a NG-RAN 714 with a gNB (e.g., gNB 716) or a NG-eNB (e.g., NG-eNB 718). The gNB 716 may connect with 5G enabled UEs using a 5G NR interface. The gNB 716 may connect with the 5G core through a NG interface, which may include an N2 interface or an N3 interface. The NG-eNB 718 may also connect with the 5G core over the NG interface, but may connect with the UE via the LTE air interface. The gNB 716 and the ng-eNB 718 may be connected to each other via an Xn interface.

In some embodiments, the NG interface may be split into two parts: a NG user plane (NG-U) interface that carries traffic data (e.g., an N3 interface) between nodes of NG-RAN 714 and UPF 748; and a NG control plane (NG-C) interface, which is a signaling interface (e.g., an N2 interface) between NG-RAN 714 and the nodes of AMF 744.

NG-RAN 714 may provide a 5G-NR air interface with the following characteristics: a variable SCS; CP-OFDM for DL, CP-OFDM for UL, and DFT-s-OFDM; polarization codes for control, repetition codes, simplex codes, and Reed-Muller codes, and LDPC codes for data. Similar to the LTE air interface, the 5G-NR air interface may rely on CSI-RS, PDSCH/PDCCH DMRS. The 5G-NR air interface may not use CRS but may use PBCH DMRS for PBCH demodulation; PTRS for phase tracking of PDSCH; and tracking reference signals for time tracking. The 5G-NR air interface may operate on an FR1 band including a sub-6GHz band or an FR2 band including a frequency band from 24.25GHz to 52.6 GHz. The 5G-NR air interface may comprise an SSB, which is an area of the downlink resource grid comprising PSS/SSS/PBCH.

In some embodiments, the 5G-NR air interface may utilize BWP for various purposes. For example, BWP may be used for dynamic adaptation of SCS. For example, the UE 702 may be configured with multiple BWP's, where each BWP configuration has a different SCS. When a BWP change is indicated to the UE 702, the SCS of the transmission also changes. Another example of use of BWP relates to power saving. In particular, the UE 702 may be configured with multiple BWPs having different amounts of frequency resources (e.g., PRBs) to support data transmission in different traffic load scenarios. BWP containing a smaller number of PRBs may be used for data transmission with smaller traffic load while allowing power saving at the UE 702 and in some cases at the gNB 716. BWP containing a larger number of PRBs may be used for higher traffic load scenarios.

The RAN 704 is communicatively coupled to a CN 720, the CN 720 including network elements to provide various functions to support data and telecommunications services for clients/subscribers (e.g., users of the UE 702). The components of CN 720 may be implemented in one physical node or in a separate physical node. In some embodiments, NFV may be used to virtualize any or all of the functionality provided by the network elements of CN 720 onto physical computing/storage resources in servers, switches, etc. The logical instance of the CN 720 may be referred to as a network slice, while the logical instance of a portion of the CN 720 may be referred to as a network sub-slice.

In some embodiments, CN 720 may be LTE CN 722 (which may also be referred to as EPC). LTE CN 722 may include MME 724, SGW 726, SGSN 728, HSS 730, PGW 732, and PCRF 734, which are coupled to each other through interfaces (or "reference points") as shown. The function of the elements of LTE CN 722 may be briefly described as follows.

MME 724 may implement mobility management functions to track the current location of UE 702 to facilitate paging, bearer activation/deactivation, handover, gateway selection, authentication, and the like.

SGW 726 may terminate the S1 interface towards the RAN and route data packets between the RAN and LTE CN 722. SGW 726 may be a local mobility anchor for inter-RAN node handover and may also provide an anchor for inter-3 GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include legal interception, billing, and some policy enforcement.

SGSN 728 can track the location of UE 702 and perform security functions and access control. Furthermore, SGSN 728 may perform EPC inter-node signaling for mobility between different RAT networks; MME 724 specified PDN and S-GW selection; MME selection for handover; etc. The S3 reference point between MME 724 and SGSN 728 may enable user and bearer information exchange for inter-3 GPP network mobility in the idle/active state.

HSS 730 may include a database for network users including subscription related information to support the handling of communication sessions by network entities. HSS 730 may provide support for routing/roaming, authentication, authorization, naming/addressing resolution, location dependencies, and the like. The S6a reference point between HSS 730 and MME 724 may enable the transfer of subscription and authentication data for authenticating/authorizing a user to access LTE CN 720.

PGW 732 may terminate an SGi interface towards a Data Network (DN) 736 that may include an application/content server 738. PGW 732 may route data packets between LTE CN 722 and data network 736. PGW 732 may be coupled with SGW 726 via an S5 reference point to facilitate user plane tunneling and tunnel management. PGW 732 may also include nodes (e.g., PCEFs) for policy enforcement and charging data collection. Furthermore, the SGi reference point between PGW 732 and data network 736 may be a public, private PDN external to the operator or an intra-operator packet data network (e.g., for provisioning IMS services). PGW 732 may be coupled with PCRF 734 via a Gx reference point.

PCRF 734 is a policy and charging control element of LTE CN 722. PCRF 734 may be communicatively coupled to app/content server 738 to determine appropriate QoS and charging parameters for the service flows. PCRF 732 may assign the associated rules to the PCEF with the appropriate TFTs and QCIs (via Gx reference points).

In some embodiments, CN 720 may be 5gc 740. The 5gc 740 may include AUSF 742, AMF 744, SMF 746, UPF 748, NSSF 750, NEF 752, NRF 754, PCF 756, UDM 758, and AF 760, coupled to each other through interfaces (or "reference points") as shown. The component functions of the 5gc 740 may be briefly described as follows.

The AUSF 742 may store data for authentication of the UE 702 and process authentication related functions. AUSF 742 may facilitate a common authentication framework for various access types. In addition to communicating with other elements of the 5gc 740 through a reference point as shown, the AUSF 742 may also present an interface based on the Nausf service.

The AMF 744 may allow other functions of the 5gc 740 to communicate with the UE 702 and RAN 704 and subscribe to notifications about mobility events of the UE 702. The AMF 744 may be responsible for registration management (e.g., for registering the UE 702), connection management, reachability management, mobility management, quorum interception of AMF related events, and access authentication and authorization. The AMF 744 may provide transport for SM messages between the UE 702 and the SMF 746, and act as a transparent proxy for routing SM messages. The AMF 744 may also provide for transmission of SMS messages between the UE 702 and the SMSF. The AMF 744 may interact with the AUSF 742 and the UE 702 to perform various security anchoring and context management functions. Furthermore, the AMF 744 may be an end point of the RAN CP interface, which may include or be an N2 reference point between the RAN 704 and the AMF 744; the AMF 744 may be the termination point for NAS (N1) signaling and performs NAS ciphering and integrity protection. The AMF 744 may also support NAS signaling with the UE 702 over the N3 IWF interface.

The SMF 746 may be responsible for SM (e.g., session establishment, tunnel management between UPF 748 and AN 708); UE IP address allocation and management (including optional authorization); selection and control of the UP function; configuring traffic control at UPF 748 to route traffic to the correct destination; terminating the interface towards the policy control function; control policy enforcement, charging, and a portion of QoS; legal interception (for SM events and interfaces to LI systems); terminating the SM portion of the NAS message; downlink data notification; initiate AN-specific SM information sent to AN 708 over N2 via AMF 744; and determining the SSC mode of the session. SM may refer to the management of PDU sessions, and PDU sessions or "sessions" may refer to PDU connectivity services that provide or enable PDU exchanges between UE 702 and data network 736.

UPF 748 may act as an anchor point for intra-RAT and inter-RAT mobility, an external PDU session point for interconnection to data network 736, and a branching point to support multi-homing PDU sessions. UPF 748 may also perform packet routing and forwarding, perform packet inspection, perform policy rules user plane parts, legal intercept packets (UP collection), perform traffic usage reporting, perform QoS processing for the user plane (e.g., packet filtering, gating, UL/DL rate enforcement), perform uplink traffic verification (e.g., SDF to QoS flow mapping), transmit level packet marking in the uplink and downlink, and perform downlink packet buffering and downlink data notification triggering. UPF 748 may include an uplink classifier to support routing traffic flows to a data network.

NSSF 750 may select a set of network slice instances to serve UE 702. NSSF 750 may also determine allowed NSSAIs and mappings to subscribed S-NSSAIs (if needed). NSSF 750 may also determine a set of AMFs to use for serving UE 702, or a list of candidate AMFs based on a suitable configuration and possibly by querying NRF 754. Selecting a set of network slice instances for the UE 702 may be triggered by the AMF 744 registered by the UE 702 by interacting with the NSSF 750, which may result in a change of AMF. NSSF 750 may interact with AMF 744 via an N22 reference point; and may communicate with another NSSF in the visited network via an N31 reference point (not shown). In addition, NSSF 750 may expose an interface based on the Nnssf service.

The NEF 752 may securely open services and capabilities provided by 3GPP network functions for third parties, internal openness/reopening, AF (e.g., AF 760), edge computing or fog computing systems, and the like. In such embodiments, the NEF 752 may authenticate, authorize, or restrict AF. The NEF 752 may also convert information exchanged with the AF 760 as well as information exchanged with internal network functions. For example, the NEF 752 may translate between an AF service identifier and internal 5GC information. The NEF 752 may also receive information from other NFs based on their ability to open. This information may be stored as structured data at NEF 752 or at data store NF using a standardized interface. The stored information may then be newly opened to other NFs and AFs by the NEF 752, or used for other purposes (e.g., analysis). Furthermore, NEF 752 may expose an interface based on Nnef services.

The NRF 754 may support a service discovery function, receive NF discovery requests from NF instances, and provide information of the discovered NF instances to the NF instances. NRF 754 also maintains information of available NF instances and services supported by them. As used herein, the terms "instantiate," "instantiate," and the like may refer to the creation of an instance, while "instance" may refer to a specific occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during execution of program code. In addition, NRF 754 may expose an interface based on Nnrf services.

PCF 756 may provide policy rules to control plane functions to implement them and may also support a unified policy framework to manage network behavior. PCF 756 may also implement a front end to access subscription information related to policy decisions in the UDR of UDM 758. In addition to communicating with functions through reference points as shown, PCF 756 also shows an interface based on the Npcf service.

The UDM 758 may process subscription related information to support the processing of communication sessions by network entities and may store subscription data for the UE 702. For example, subscription data may be communicated via an N8 reference point between UDM 758 and AMF 744. UDM 758 may include two parts: application front-end and UDR. The UDR may store subscription data and policy data for UDM 758 and PCF 756, and/or structured data for open and application data of NEF 752 (including PFD for application detection, application request information for multiple UEs 702). The Nudr service-based interface may be exposed by UDR 221 to allow UDM 758, PCF 756, and NEF 752 to access a particular set of stored data, as well as read, update (e.g., add, modify, delete, and subscribe to notifications of related data changes in UDR).

AF 760 may provide application impact on traffic routing, provide access to the NEF, and interact with the policy framework for policy control.

In some embodiments, the 5gc 740 may enable edge computation by selecting an operator/third party service to be geographically close to the point where the UE 702 attaches to the network. This may reduce latency and load on the network. To provide edge computing implementations, the 5gc 740 may select the UPF 748 near the UE 702 and perform traffic steering from the UPF 748 to the data network 736 via the N6 interface. This may be based on the UE subscription data, UE location, and information provided by AF 760. In this way, AF 760 may affect UPF (re) selection and traffic routing. Based on the carrier deployment, the network operator may allow the AF 760 to interact directly with the associated NF when the AF 760 is considered a trusted entity. In addition, AF 760 may present an interface based on Naf services.

The data network 736 may represent various network operator services, internet access, or third party services that may be provided by one or more servers, including, for example, an application/content server 738.

Fig. 8 schematically illustrates a wireless network 800 according to various embodiments. The wireless network 800 may include a UE 802 in wireless communication with AN 804. The UE 802 and the AN 804 may be similar to, and substantially interchangeable with, similarly-named components described elsewhere herein.

The UE 802 may be communicatively coupled with the AN 804 via a connection 806. Connection 806 is shown as implementing a communicatively coupled air interface and may conform to a cellular communication protocol, such as the LTE protocol or the 5G NR protocol operating at mmWave or sub-6GHz frequencies.

UE 802 may include a host platform 808 coupled to a modem platform 810. Host platform 808 can include application processing circuitry 812, which can be coupled with protocol processing circuitry 814 of modem platform 810. The application processing circuitry 812 may run various applications for outgoing/incoming application data for the UE 802. The application processing circuitry 812 may also implement one or more layer operations to send and receive application data to and from the data network. These layer operations may include transport (e.g., UDP) and internet (e.g., IP) operations.

Protocol processing circuitry 814 may implement one or more layers of operations to facilitate sending or receiving data over connection 806. Layer operations implemented by the protocol processing circuit 814 may include, for example, MAC, RLC, PDCP, RRC and NAS operations.

Modem platform 810 may also include digital baseband circuitry 816 that may implement one or more layer operations, which are "lower" layer operations in the network protocol stack performed by protocol processing circuitry 814. These operations may include, for example, PHY operations, including one or more of the following: HARQ-ACK functionality, scrambling/descrambling, encoding/decoding, layer mapping/demapping, modulation symbol mapping, received symbol/bit metric determination, multi-antenna port precoding/decoding (which may include one or more of space-time, space-frequency, or space coding), reference signal generation/detection, preamble sequence generation and/or decoding, synchronization sequence generation/detection, control channel signal blind decoding, and other related functions.

Modem platform 810 may also include transmit circuitry 818, receive circuitry 820, RF circuitry 822, and RF front end (RFFE) 824, which may include or be connected to one or more antenna panels 826. Briefly, transmit circuitry 818 may include digital-to-analog converters, mixers, intermediate Frequency (IF) components, and the like; the receive circuitry 820 may include analog-to-digital converters, mixers, IF components, etc.; the RF circuitry 822 may include low noise amplifiers, power tracking components, and the like; RFFE 824 may include filters (e.g., surface/bulk acoustic wave filters), switches, antenna tuners, beam forming components (e.g., phased array antenna components), and so forth. The selection and arrangement of the components of transmit circuitry 818, receive circuitry 820, RF circuitry 822, RFFE 824, and antenna panel 826 (commonly referred to as "transmit/receive components") may be specific to the specifics of a particular implementation, such as whether the communication is TDM or FDM, frequency at mmWave or sub-6GHz, and so forth. In some embodiments, the transmit/receive components may be arranged in multiple parallel transmit/receive chains, may be provided in the same or different chips/modules, etc.

In some embodiments, protocol processing circuit 814 may include one or more instances of control circuitry (not shown) for providing control functions for the transmit/receive components.

UE reception may be established by and through antenna panel 826, RFFE 824, RF circuitry 822, receive circuitry 820, digital baseband circuitry 816, and protocol processing circuitry 814. In some embodiments, antenna panel 826 may receive transmissions from AN 804 by receiving beamformed signals received by multiple antennas/antenna elements of one or more antenna panels 826.

UE transmissions may be established by and through protocol processing circuitry 814, digital baseband circuitry 816, transmit circuitry 818, RF circuitry 822, RFFE 824, and antenna panel 826. In some embodiments, the transmit component of the UE 804 may apply spatial filtering to the data to be transmitted to form a transmit beam that is transmitted by the antenna elements of the antenna panel 826.

Similar to the UE 802, the an 804 may include a host platform 828 coupled with a modem platform 830. Host platform 828 may include application processing circuitry 832 coupled with protocol processing circuitry 834 of modem platform 830. The modem platform may also include digital baseband circuitry 836, transmit circuitry 838, receive circuitry 840, RF circuitry 842, RFFE circuitry 844, and antenna panel 846. The components of the AN 804 may be similar to, and substantially interchangeable with, similarly-named components of the UE 802. In addition to performing data transmission/reception as described above, the components of the AN 808 may perform various logic functions including, for example, RNC functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management, and data packet scheduling.

Fig. 9 is a block diagram illustrating components capable of reading instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and performing any one or more of the methods discussed herein, according to some example embodiments. In particular, FIG. 9 shows a graphical representation of a hardware resource 900, including one or more processors (or processor cores) 910, one or more memory/storage devices 920, and one or more communication resources 930, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus 940 or other interface circuitry. For embodiments that utilize node virtualization (e.g., NFV), the hypervisor 902 can be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices/sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources 900.

Processor 910 may include, for example, a processor 912 and a processor 914. The processor 910 may be, for example, a Central Processing Unit (CPU), a Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) processor, a Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC) processor, a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), a DSP (e.g., baseband processor), an ASIC, an FPGA, a Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC), another processor (including those discussed herein), or any suitable combination thereof.

Memory/storage 920 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. Memory/storage 920 may include, but is not limited to, any type of volatile, nonvolatile, or semi-volatile memory such as Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), static Random Access Memory (SRAM), erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (EPROM), electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (EEPROM), flash memory, solid state memory, and the like.

Communication resources 930 may include an interconnection or network interface controller, component, or other suitable device to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 904 or one or more databases 906 or other network elements via network 908. For example, the communication resources 930 may include wired communication components (e.g., for coupling via USB, ethernet, etc.), cellular communication components, NFC components, and so forth,

(or low power consumption->

) Assembly, & gtof>

Components and other communication components.

The instructions 950 may include software, programs, applications, applets, apps, or other executable code for causing at least any processor 910 to perform any one or more of the methods discussed herein. The instructions 950 may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processor 910 (e.g., within a cache memory of the processor), the memory/storage device 920, or any suitable combination thereof. Further, any portion of the instructions 950 may be transferred from any combination of the peripheral device 904 or the database 906 to the hardware resource 900. Accordingly, the memory of the processor 910, the memory/storage device 920, the peripherals 904, and the database 906 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media.

Example procedure

In some embodiments, the electronic devices, networks, systems, chips, or components of fig. 7-9 or some other figures herein, or portions or implementations thereof, may be configured to perform one or more processes, techniques, or methods, or portions thereof, as described herein.

Fig. 10 depicts one such process.

For example, process 1000 may include: at 1005, a smart contract for the localized service is deployed on a Blockchain (BC) network based on smart contract information associated with the localized service. The process further includes: at 1010, configuration information associated with the localized service is provided to a service provider to provision, modify, or update a service configuration at the hosted network. The process further includes: at 1015, an indication of supported on-demand localized services is published via a Protocol Data Unit (PDU) session of an Internet Protocol (IP) connection provided by the hosting network based on a localized service policy in the smart contract.

Fig. 11 illustrates another process in accordance with various embodiments. In this example, process 1100 includes: at 1105, network policy configuration information associated with the localized service is determined for the first network, wherein the network policy configuration information includes an indication of: unified Data Management (UDM) address information for UE authentication, or traffic routing policies. The process further includes: at 1110, network policy services of the second network are configured using the network policy configuration information. The process further includes: at 1115, an Application Programming Interface (API) is provided to a service provider to allocate information related to Protocol Data Unit (PDU) session parameters for an Internet Protocol (IP) connection for on-demand localization of the service.

Fig. 12 illustrates another process in accordance with various embodiments. In this example, process 1200 includes: at 1205, service policy configuration information for an on-demand localized service provided by the hosted network at a predetermined time or location is determined. The process further includes: at 1210, service policy configuration information is provided to a service provider for accessing on-demand localized services.

For one or more embodiments, at least one component set forth in one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to perform one or more operations, techniques, procedures, and/or methods set forth in the following examples section. For example, the baseband circuitry described above in connection with one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to operate in accordance with one or more examples set forth below. As another example, circuitry associated with a UE, base station, network element, etc., described above in connection with one or more of the preceding figures may be configured to operate in accordance with one or more of the examples set forth in the examples section below.

Example

Example 1 may include a method in which a 5G network should implement a mechanism for a network operator to provide access to localized services to configure the following network policies of a service provider for authenticating that their UEs attempt to register with and use their home network services via a hosted network, including one or more of the following:

UDM Address information for authenticating roaming UEs through its home network

Traffic routing policies and network configurations, such as network addresses of target service operators (e.g., N3IWF, SMF, UPF, PSA, etc.), forWhen the home network of the UE is not availableThe traffic of the roaming UE is routed to its home network subscribing to PALS services.

Alternatively, the 5G network should implement an appropriate API for service providers subscribing to PALS services from SP-a to configure one or more of the following network policies of the service provider for authenticating that their UEs attempt to register and use their home network via the managed network:

UDM address information for authenticating the roaming UE through the home network; and/or

Example 2 may include that the 5G network should implement a suitable API to open network capabilities based on one or more of the following network configurations:

spectrum resources, RAT (including 3GPP or non-3 GPP access);

network slice allocation for these network operators;

Default PDU session for IP connection, including S-NSSAI and DNN; and/or

Specific network service capabilities (e.g., location services, time synchronization, service function chains).

Additionally or alternatively, the 5G network should implement a suitable API to open network identification information to other network operators for providing access localization services in certain situations (e.g., time and location), where the network identification information may include one or more of the following:

a managed network ID for discovering a managed network;

PALS service group IDs representing all SP users of PALS service;

an ID configured for home network authentication; and/or

On-demand service capabilities for other service providers.

Example 3 may include that a 5G network providing access to localized services should support a suitable API for other service providers to allocate one or more of the following information about PDU session parameters for IP connections for their on-demand dedicated services via a hosted network, e.g.

Service identification of the SP-B specific service and its corresponding human-readable identification;

PDU session required for IP connection parameters, network slices, DNN and QoS parameters;

application information;

The urs rules for traffic routing policies for dedicated services;

on-demand private service provider ID;

services of a particular hosted network required by the application, such as location-based services, timing resilience services, multicast and broadcast services, etc.;

network configuration for routing the private service from the hosted network to the services network; and/or

Subscriber information, such as a service provider ID (PLMN ID or PLMN id+npn ID) or a service provider capable of identifying an on-demand dedicated service (of SP-B) for billing purposes.

Example 4 may include that a 5G network providing access to localized services should be able to allow a roaming UE to manually select qualified on-demand dedicated services offered by different service providers and routed via a hosted network.

Example 5 may include that the 5G network providing access to the localized service should be able to collect billing records for the on-demand dedicated service based on the service and billing policy provided by the on-demand dedicated service provider.

Example 6 may include that a 5G network providing access to localized services should be able to support PDU sessions required for IP connections at a hosted network for a UE to use its home network services simultaneously with on-demand dedicated services provided by the hosted network or other service provider.

Example 7 may include that a UE configured with PALS services should be able to use home network services simultaneously and on-demand dedicated services provided by a hosted network or other service provider via a hosted network that provides access localization services when only the hosted network is available.

Example 8 may include that a UE configured with PALS services should be able to use home network services directly and on-demand dedicated services provided by a hosted network or other service provider via a hosted network that provides access localization services at the same time when both the home network and the hosted network are available.

Example X1 includes an apparatus to host a network, comprising:

a memory storing smart contract information associated with a localized service; and

processing circuitry, coupled to the memory, for:

deploying an intelligent contract for the localized service on a Blockchain (BC) network based on the intelligent contract information; and

providing configuration information associated with the localized service to a service provider to provision, modify, or update the service configuration at the hosted network; and

an indication of on-demand localized services supported by a Protocol Data Unit (PDU) session for an Internet Protocol (IP) connection is published via a hosted network in accordance with a localized service policy in a smart contract.

Example X2 includes the apparatus of example X1 or some other example herein, wherein the processing circuitry is further to: subscriptions to published on-demand localized services are received from a service provider.

Example X3 includes the apparatus of example X1 or some other example herein, wherein the smart contract for the localized service allows creation and termination of a web service for the localized service.

Example X4 includes the apparatus of example X1 or some other example herein, wherein the smart contract for the localized service includes information associated with a smart contract-based service level agreement (SC-SLA), a network identifier, or a subscriber network setting for user authentication.

Example X5 includes the apparatus of example X1 or some other example herein, wherein the smart contract for the localization service includes information associated with the published on-demand localization service.

Example X6 includes the apparatus of example X5 or some other example herein, wherein the information associated with the published on-demand localization service includes an indication of: network identifiers of service providers that provide the published on-demand localized services, dedicated PDU session information, user equipment routing policy (urs) rules, required service or application identifiers.

Example X7 includes the apparatus of any one of examples X1-X6 or some other example herein, wherein the processing circuitry is further to: providing access to localized services or on-demand localized services published by a service provider within a predetermined time period or location area.

Example X8 includes the apparatus of any one of examples X1-X7 or some other example herein, wherein the apparatus comprises a policy and charging control framework or a portion thereof.

Example X9 includes one or more computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause one or more functions of a policy and charging control framework to:

determining network policy configuration information associated with the localized service for the first network, wherein the network policy configuration information includes an indication of: unified Data Management (UDM) address information for UE authentication, or traffic routing policies;

configuring a network policy service of the second network using the network policy configuration information; and

an Application Programming Interface (API) is provided to a service provider to allocate information related to Protocol Data Unit (PDU) session parameters for an Internet Protocol (IP) connection for on-demand localization services.

Example X10 includes one or more computer-readable media of example X9 or some other example herein, wherein the information related to PDU session parameters for the IP connection includes an indication of: service identification of the on-demand localization service, corresponding human readable identification for the on-demand localization service, PDU session required for IP connection parameters, application information, user equipment routing policy (urs) rules, on-demand localization service provider identifier, required service, or network configuration for routing traffic to access the on-demand localization service.

Example X11 includes the one or more computer-readable media of example X9 or some other example herein, wherein the network policy configuration information provides access to the localized service for a predetermined period of time or location area.

Example X12 includes one or more computer-readable media of example X9 or some other example herein, wherein the network policy configuration information includes an indication of: spectrum resources, network slice allocation, default Protocol Data Unit (PDU) session for Internet Protocol (IP) connection, or network service capability.

Example X13 includes one or more computer-readable media of any one of examples X9-X12 or some other example herein, wherein the media further stores instructions for configuring a network policy service via an Application Programming Interface (API).

Example X14 includes one or more computer-readable media of example X9 or some other example herein, wherein the media further stores sum instructions for providing network identification information to the second network.

Example X15 includes the one or more computer-readable media of example X14 or some other example herein, wherein the network identification information includes an indication of a hosted network identifier or one or more localized service group identifiers.

Example X16 includes one or more computer-readable media of example X9 or some other example herein, wherein the media further stores instructions for providing information to the second network for discovering and using localized services.

Example X17 includes one or more computer-readable media of example X16 or some other examples herein, wherein the information for discovering and using localized services includes an indication of: authorization of a localized service, network identity information, or a localized service group identifier.

Example X18 includes the one or more computer-readable media of any one of examples X9-X17 or some other example herein, wherein the policy and charging control framework is implemented by a hosted network or a portion thereof.

Example X19 includes one or more computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause one or more functions of a managed network to:

Determining service policy configuration information for an on-demand localized service provided by the hosted network at a predetermined time or location; and

service policy configuration information is provided to a service provider to access on-demand localized services.

Example X20 includes the one or more computer-readable media of example X19 or some other example herein, wherein the service policy configuration information includes a service identification of the on-demand localization service and a corresponding human-readable identification for the on-demand localization service.

Example X21 includes the one or more computer-readable media of example X19 or some other example herein, wherein the service policy configuration information includes network configuration information for routing the on-demand localized service from the hosted network to the service provider's network.

Example X22 includes one or more computer-readable media of example X19 or some other example herein, wherein the service policy configuration information includes IP connection parameters.

Example X23 includes one or more computer-readable media of example X19 or some other example herein, wherein the service policy configuration information includes an application identifier associated with the on-demand localized service.

Example X24 includes the one or more computer-readable media of example X19 or some other example herein, wherein the service policy configuration information includes urs rules for traffic routing.

Example Z01 may include an apparatus comprising means for performing one or more elements of the methods described in or related to any of examples 1-X24, or any other method or process described herein.

Example Z02 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of an electronic device, cause the electronic device to perform one or more elements of the methods described in or related to any one of examples 1-X24, or any other method or process described herein.

Example Z03 may include an apparatus comprising logic, modules, or circuitry to perform one or more elements of the methods described in or related to any of examples 1-X24, or any other method or process described herein.

Example Z04 may include a method, technique, or process as described in or relating to any of examples 1-X24, or portions or sections thereof.

Example Z05 may include an apparatus comprising: one or more processors and one or more computer-readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the method, technique, or process described in or related to any one of examples 1-X24, or a portion or section thereof.

Example Z06 may include a signal as described in or related to any of examples 1-X24, or a portion or section thereof.

Example Z07 may include a datagram, packet, frame, segment, protocol Data Unit (PDU), or message as described in or related to any one of examples 1-X24, or a portion or section thereof, or otherwise described in this disclosure.

Example Z08 may include a signal encoded with data as described in any of examples 1-X24, or portions or sections thereof, or related to a threshold, or otherwise described in this disclosure.

Example Z09 may include signals encoded with datagrams, packets, frames, segments, protocol Data Units (PDUs), or messages as described in or related to any of examples 1-X24, or portions or sections thereof, or otherwise described in this disclosure.

Example Z10 may include electromagnetic signals carrying computer-readable instructions, wherein execution of the computer-readable instructions by one or more processors causes the one or more processors to perform the methods, techniques, or processes described in or related to any one of examples 1-X24, or portions thereof.

Example Z11 may include a computer program comprising instructions, wherein execution of the program by the processing element causes the processing element to perform a method, technique, or process described in or related to any one of examples 1-X24, or portions thereof.

Example Z12 may include signals in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

Example Z13 may include a method of communicating in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

Example Z14 may include a system for providing wireless communications as shown and described herein.

Example Z15 may include a device to provide wireless communication as shown and described herein.

Any of the above examples may be combined with any other example (or combination of examples) unless explicitly stated otherwise. The foregoing description of one or more implementations provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the scope of the embodiments to the precise form disclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from practice of various embodiments.

Abbreviations (abbreviations)

Unless used differently herein, terms, definitions and abbreviations may be consistent with terms, definitions and abbreviations defined in 3GPP TR21.905v16.0.0 (2019-06). For the purposes of this document, the following abbreviations may apply to the examples and embodiments discussed herein.

3GPP third Generation partnership project

Fourth generation of 4G

Fifth generation of 5G

5GC 5G core network

ACK acknowledgement

AF application function

AM acknowledged mode

AMBR aggregate maximum bit rate

AMF access and mobility management functions

AN access network

ANR automatic neighbor relation

AP application protocol, antenna port and access point

API application programming interface

APN access point name

ARP allocation and reservation priority

ARQ automatic repeat request

AS access layer

ASN.1 abstract syntax notation 1

AUSF authentication server function

AWGN additive Gaussian white noise

BAP backhaul adaptation protocol

BCH broadcast channel

BER error rate

BFD beam fault detection

BLER block error rate

BPSK binary phase shift keying

BRAS broadband remote access server

BSS service support system

BS base station

BSR buffer status reporting

BW bandwidth

bWP partial bandwidth

C-RNTI cell radio network temporary identity

CA carrier aggregation and authentication mechanism

CAPEX capital expenditure

CBRA contention-based random access

CC component carrier, country code, secret checksum

CCA clear channel assessment

CCE control channel element

CCCH common control channel

CE coverage enhancement

CDM content distribution network

CDMA code division multiple access

CFRA contention-free random access

CG cell group

CI cell identity

CID cell ID (e.g., positioning method)

CIM public information model

CIR carrier to interference ratio

CK key

CM connection management and conditional enforcement

CMAS business mobile alert service

CMD command

CMS cloud management system

CO conditional options

CoMP coordinated multipoint

CORESET control resource set

COTS commercial off-the-shelf

CP control plane, cyclic prefix, and attachment point

CPD connection point descriptor

CPE customer premises equipment

CPICH common pilot channel

CQI channel quality indication

CPU CSI processing unit and central processing unit

C/R command/response field, bit

CRAN cloud radio access network, cloud RAN

CRB common resource block

CRC cyclic redundancy check

CRI channel state information resource indication, CSI-RS resource indication

C-RNTI cell RNTI

CS circuit switching

CSAR cloud service archiving

CSI channel state information

CSI-IM CSI interference measurement

CSI-RS CSI reference signal

CSI-RSRP CSI reference signal receiving power

CSI-RSRQ CSI reference signal receiving quality

CSI-SINR CSI signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio

CSMA carrier sense multiple access

CSMA/CA with collision avoidance

CSS common search space, cell specific search space

CTS clear to send

CW codeword

cWS contention window size

D2D device-to-device

DC double connection, DC

DCI downlink control information

DF deployment style

DL downlink

DMTF distributed management task group

DPDK data plane development kit

DM-RS DMRS demodulation reference signal

DN data network

DRB data radio bearer

DRS discovery reference signal

DRX discontinuous reception

DSL domain specific language, digital subscriber line

DSLAM DSL access multiplexer

DwPTS downlink pilot time slot

E-LAN Ethernet local area network

E2E end-to-end

ECCA extended clear channel assessment, extended CCA

ECCE enhanced control channel element, enhanced CCE

ED energy detection

EDGE enhanced data rates for GSM evolution (GSM evolution)

EGMF open control management function

EGPRS enhanced GPRS

EIR equipment identification register

eLAA enhanced authorization assisted access and enhanced LAA

EM component manager

eMBB enhanced mobile broadband

EMS element management system

eNBs evolution Node B, E-UTRAN Node B

EN-DC E-UTRA-NR double connection

EPC evolution packet core

EPDCCH enhanced PDCCH, enhanced physical downlink control channel

EPRE energy element per resource

EPS evolution grouping system

EREG enhanced REG, enhanced resource element group

ETSI European Telecommunications standards institute

ETWS earthquake and tsunami early warning system

eUICC embedded UICC and embedded universal integrated circuit card

E-UTRA evolution UTRA

E-UTRAN evolved UTRAN

EV2X enhanced V2X

F1AP F1 application protocol

F1-C F1 control plane interface

F1-U F1 user plane interface

FACCH fast associated control channel

FACCH/F fast associated control channel/full rate

FACCH/H fast associated control channel/half rate

FACH forward access channel

FAUSCH fast uplink signaling channel

FB function block

FBI feedback information

FCC federal communications commission

FCCH frequency correction channel

FDD frequency division duplexing

FDM frequency division multiplexing

FDMA frequency division multiple Access

FE front end

FEC forward error correction

FFS further study

FFT fast Fourier transform

The FeLAA further enhances the authorization-assisted access and further enhances the LAA

FN frame number

FPGA field programmable gate array

FR frequency range

G-RNTI GERAN wireless network temporary identification

GERAN GSM EDGE RAN GSM EDGE radio access network

GGSN gateway GPRS support node

GLONASS GLobal' naya NAvigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema (English: global navigation satellite System)

gNB next generation NodeB

gNB-CU gNB centralized unit, next generation NodeB centralized unit

gNB-DU gNB distributed unit, next generation NodeB distributed unit

GNSS global navigation satellite system

GPRS general packet radio service

GSM global system for Mobile communications (GSM) and group Sp area Mobile

GTP GPRS tunnel protocol

GTP-U GPRS user plane tunnel protocol

GTS (WUS related) sleep signal

Gummei globally unique MME identifier

GUTI globally unique temporary UE identity

HARQ hybrid ARQ, hybrid automatic repeat request

Hando handoff

HFN superframe number

HHO hard handoff

HLR home location register

HN home network

HO handover

HPLMN home public land mobile network

HSDPA high speed downlink packet access

HSN frequency hopping sequence number

HSPA high speed packet access

HSS home subscriber server

HSUPA high speed uplink packet access

HTTP hypertext transfer protocol

HTTPS Hypertext transfer Security protocol (HTTPS is http/1.1 over SSL, port 443)

I-Block information Block

ICCID integrated circuit card identification

IAB integrated access and backhaul

inter-ICIC inter-cell interference coordination

ID identification, identifier

Inverse discrete fourier transform of IDFT

IE information element

IBE in-band emission

IEEE institute of Electrical and electronics Engineers

IEI cell identifier

IEIDL cell identifier data length

IETF Internet engineering task force

IF infrastructure

IM interference measurement, intermodulation, IP multimedia

IMC IMS certificate

IMEI International Mobile Equipment identity

IMGI International Mobile group identification

IMPI IP multimedia private identity

IMPU IP multimedia public identity

IMS IP multimedia subsystem

IMSI international mobile subscriber identity

IoT (Internet of things)

IP Internet protocol

Ipsec IP security and internet protocol security

IP-CAN IP-connected access network

IP-M IP multicast

IPv4 Internet protocol version 4

IPv6 Internet protocol version 6

IR infrared ray

IS synchronization

IRP integration reference point

ISDN integrated service digital network

ISIM (integrated circuit IM) service identity module

ISO International organization for standardization

ISP Internet service provider

IWF interworking function

I-WLAN interworking WLAN

Convolutional code constraint length, USIM individual key

kB kilobyte (1000 bytes)

kbps kilobits per second

Kc key

Ki personal user authentication key

KPI key performance indication

KQI key quality indication

KSI keyset identifier

ksps kilosymbols per second

KVM kernel virtual machine

L1 layer 1 (physical layer)

L1-RSRP layer 1 reference signal received power

L2 layer 2 (data Link layer)

L3 layer 3 (network layer)

LAA authorization assisted access

LAN local area network

LBT listen before talk

LCM lifecycle management

LCR low chip rate

LCS location services

LCID logical channel ID

LI layer indication

LLC logical link control, lower layer compatibility

LPLMN home PLMN

LPP LTE positioning protocol

LSB least significant bit

LTE long term evolution

LWA LTE-WLAN aggregation

LWIP LTE/WLAN wireless level integration with IPsec tunnel

LTE long term evolution

M2M machine-to-machine

MAC medium access control (protocol layering context)

MAC message authentication code (Security/encryption context)

MAC-A MAC for authentication and Key agreement (TSG T WG3 context)

MAC-I MAC for data integrity of signaling messages (TSG T WG3 context)

MANO management and orchestration

MBMS multimedia broadcast and multicast service

MBSFN multimedia broadcast multicast service single frequency network

MCC mobile country code

MCG master cell group

MCOT maximum channel occupancy time

MCS modulation coding scheme

MDAF management data analysis function

MDAS management data analysis service

MDT minimization of drive test

ME mobile equipment

MeNB master eNB

MER error rate

MGL measurement gap length

MGRP measurement gap repetition period

MIB master information block and management information base

MIMO multiple input multiple output

MLC moving position center

MM mobility management

MME mobility management entity

MN master node

MnS management service

MO measuring object, mobile station calling party

MPBCH MTC physical broadcast channel

MPDCCH MTC physical downlink control channel

MPDSCH MTC physical downlink shared channel

MPRACH MTC physical random access channel

MPUSCH MTC physical uplink shared channel

MPLS multiprotocol label switching

MS mobile station

MSB most significant bit

MSC mobile switching center

MSI minimum system information, MCH scheduling information

MSID mobile station identifier

MSIN mobile station identification number

MSISDN mobile subscriber ISDN number

MT mobile station called mobile terminal

MTC machine type communication

mMTC large-scale MTC and large-scale machine type communication

MU-MIMO multi-user MIMO

MWUS MTC wake-up signal, MTC WUS

NACK negative acknowledgement

NAI network access identifier

NAS non-access stratum, non-access stratum

NCT network connection topology

NC-JT incoherent joint transmission

NEC network capability opening

NE-DC NR-E-UTRA dual linkage

NEF network opening function

NF network function

NFP network forwarding path

NFPD network forwarding path descriptor

NFV network function virtualization

NFVI NFV infrastructure

NFVO NFV orchestrator

NG next generation, next generation

NGEN-DC NG-RAN E-UTRA-NR dual connectivity

NM network manager

NMS network management system

N-PoP network point of presence

NMIB, N-MIB narrowband MIB

NPBCH narrowband physical broadcast channel

NPDCCH narrowband physical downlink control channel

NPDSCH narrowband physical downlink shared channel

NPRACH narrowband physical random access channel

NPUSCH narrowband physical uplink shared channel

NPSS narrowband primary synchronization signal

NSSS narrowband secondary synchronization signal

NR new air interface, neighbor relation

NRF NF memory bank function

NRS narrowband reference signal

NS network service

NSA dependent mode of operation

NSD network service descriptor

NSR network service record

NSSAI network slice selection assistance information

S-NNSAI mono NSSAI

NSSF network slice selection function

NW network

NWUS narrowband wake-up signal, narrowband WUS

NZP non-zero power

O & M operation and maintenance

ODU2 optical channel data Unit-type 2

OFDM orthogonal frequency division multiplexing

OFDMA multiple access

Out-of-band OOB

OOS dyssynchrony

OPEX operation cost

OSI other system information

OSS operation support system

OTA over-the-air download

PAPR peak-to-average power ratio

PAR peak-to-average ratio

PBCH physical broadcast channel

PC power control, personal computer

PCC primary component carrier and primary CC

PCell primary cell

PCI physical cell ID, physical cell identity

PCEF policy and charging enforcement function

PCF policy control function

PCRF policy control and charging rules function

PDCP packet data convergence protocol, packet data convergence protocol layer

PDCCH physical downlink control channel

PDCP packet data convergence protocol

PDN packet data network, public data network

PDSCH physical downlink shared channel

PDU protocol data unit

PEI permanent device identifier

PFD packet flow description

P-GW PDN gateway

PHICH physical hybrid ARQ indicator channel

PHY physical layer

PLMN public land mobile network

PIN personal identification number

PM performance measurement

PMI precoding matrix indication

PNF physical network function

PNFD physical network function descriptor

PNFR physical network function record

PTT over POC cell

PP, PTP point-to-point

PPP point-to-point protocol

PRACH physical RACH

PRB physical resource block

PRG physical resource block group

ProSe proximity services, proximity-based services

PRS positioning reference signal

PRR packet receiving radio

PS packet service

PSBCH physical side link broadcast channel

PSDCH physical side link downlink channel

PSCCH physical side link control channel

PSFCH physical side link feedback channel

PSSCH physical side link shared channel

PSCell primary SCell

PSS primary synchronization signal

PSTN public switched telephone network

PT-RS phase tracking reference signal

PTT push-to-talk

PUCCH physical uplink control channel

PUSCH physical uplink shared channel

QAM quadrature amplitude modulation

QCI QoS class identifier

QCL quasi co-station

QFI QoS flow ID, qoS flow identifier

QoS quality of service

QPSK quadrature (quaternary) phase shift keying

QZSS quasi zenith satellite system

RA-RNTI random access RNTI

RAB radio access bearer, random access burst

RACH random access channel

RADIUS remote authentication dial-in user service

RAN radio access network

RAND (random number for authentication)

RAR random access response

RAT radio access technology

RAU routing area update

RB resource block, radio bearer

RBG resource block group

REG resource element group

Rel version

REQ request

RF radio frequency

RI rank indication

RIV resource indication value

RL radio link

RLC radio link control and radio link control layer

RLC AM RLC acknowledged mode

RLC UM RLC unacknowledged mode

RLF radio link failure

RLM radio link monitoring

RLM-RS reference signals for RLM

RM registration management

RMC reference measurement channel

RMSI residual MSI, residual minimum System information

RN relay node

RNC radio network controller

RNL wireless network layer

RNTI radio network temporary identifier

ROHC robust header compression

RRC radio resource control, radio resource control layer

RRM radio resource management

RS reference signal

RSRP reference signal received power

RSRQ reference signal reception quality

RSSI received signal strength indication

RSU roadside unit

RSTD reference signal time difference

RTP real-time protocol

RTS ready to send

Round trip time of RTT

Rx receiving, receiving and receiving machine

S1AP S1 application protocol

S1-MME S1 for control plane

S1-U S1 for user plane

S-GW service gateway

S-RNTI SRNC radio network temporary identification

S-TMSI SAE temporary mobile station identifier

SA independent mode of operation

SAE system architecture evolution

SAP service access point

SAPD service access point descriptor

SAPI service access point identifier

SCC auxiliary component carrier wave and auxiliary CC

SCell secondary cell

SC-FDMA Single Carrier frequency division multiple Access

SCG auxiliary cell group

SCM security context management

SCS subcarrier spacing

SCTP flow control transmission protocol

SDAP service data adaptation protocol and service data adaptation protocol layer

SDL supplemental downlink

SDNF structured data storage network function

SDP session description protocol

SDSF structured data storage function

SDU service data unit

SEAF safety anchoring function

eNB (evolved node B) auxiliary eNB (evolved node B)

SEPP secure edge protection proxy

SFI slot format indication

SFTD space frequency time diversity, SFN and frame timing difference

SFN system frame number or single frequency network

SgNB assists gNB

SGSN service GPRS support node

S-GW service gateway

SI system information

SI-RNTI system information RNTI

SIB system information block

SIM user identity module

SIP session initiation protocol

SiP system in package

SL side link

SLA service level agreement

SM session management

SMF session management function

SMS short message service

SMSF SMS function

SMTC SSB-based measurement timing configuration

SN auxiliary node, serial number

SoC system on chip

SON self-organizing network

SpCell special cell

Semi-permanent CSI RNTI of SP-CSI-RNTI

SPS semi-persistent scheduling

SQN sequence number

SR scheduling request

SRB signaling radio bearer

SRS sounding reference signal

SS synchronization signal

SSB SS block

SSBRI SSB resource indication

SSC session and service continuity

Reference signal received power of SS-RSRP based on synchronous signal

SS-RSRQ synchronization signal-based reference signal reception quality

SS-SINR based on signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio of synchronous signal

SSS secondary synchronization signal

SSSG search space set group

SSSIF search space set indication

SST slice/service type

SU-MIMO single user MIMO

SUL supplemental uplink

TA timing advance, tracking area

TAC tracking area code

TAG timing advance group

TAU tracking area update

TB transport block

TBS transport block size

TBD pending

TCI transport configuration indication

TCP transport communication protocol

TDD time division duplexing

TDM time division multiplexing

TDMA time division multiple access

TE terminal equipment

TEID tunnel endpoint identifier

TFT business flow template

TMSI temporary Mobile subscriber identity

TNL transport network layer

TPC transmit power control

TPMI transmission precoding matrix indication

TR technical report

TRP, TRxP transmitting and receiving point

TRS tracking reference signal

TRx transceiver

TS technical specification, technical standard

TTI transmission time interval

Tx transmission, transmission and transmitter

U-RNTI UTRAN radio network temporary identifier

UART universal asynchronous receiver and transmitter

UCI uplink control information

UE user equipment

UDM unified data management

UDP user datagram protocol

UDR unified data store

UDSF unstructured data storage network function

Universal integrated circuit card for UICC

UL uplink

UM unacknowledged mode

UML unified modeling language

Universal mobile telecommunication system for UMTS

UP user plane

UPF user plane functionality

URI uniform resource identifier

URL uniform resource locator

ULLC ultra-reliability and low latency

USB universal serial bus

USIM universal user identity module

USS UE specific search space

UTRA UMTS terrestrial radio access

UTRAN universal terrestrial radio access network

UwPTS uplink pilot time slot

V2I vehicle-to-infrastructure

V2P vehicle to pedestrian

V2V vehicle-to-vehicle

V2X vehicle to everything

VIM virtualization infrastructure manager

VL virtual links

VLAN virtual LAN and virtual LAN

VM virtual machine

VNF virtualized network functions

VNFFG VNF forwarding graph

VNFFGD VNF forwarding graph descriptor

VNFM VNF manager

VoIP voice over IP, voice over Internet protocol

VPLMN visited public land mobile network

VPN virtual private network

VRB virtual resource block

WiMAX worldwide interoperability for microwave access

WLAN wireless local area network

WMAN wireless metropolitan area network

WPAN wireless personal area network

X2-C X2-control plane

X2-U X2-user plane

XML extensible markup language

XRES expected user response

XOR exclusive OR

ZC Zadoff-Chu

Zero power ZP

Terminology

For purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply to the examples and embodiments discussed herein.

The term "circuitry" as used herein refers to, is part of, or includes the following hardware components: such as electronic circuitry, logic circuitry, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group) and/or memory (shared, dedicated, or group), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Field Programmable Device (FPD) (e.g., a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), a Programmable Logic Device (PLD), a Complex PLD (CPLD), a high-capacity PLD (hcld), a structured ASIC, or a programmable SoC), a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), etc., that are configured to provide the described functionality. In some embodiments, the circuitry may execute one or more software or firmware programs to provide at least some of the described functionality. The term "circuitry" may also refer to a combination of one or more hardware elements and program code (or a combination of circuitry and program code for use in an electrical or electronic system) for performing the functions of the program code. In these embodiments, a combination of hardware elements and program code may be referred to as a particular type of circuit.

The term "processor circuit" as used herein refers to a circuit, part of or comprising, capable of sequentially and automatically performing a series of arithmetic or logical operations, or recording, storing and/or transmitting digital data. The processing circuitry may include one or more processing cores for executing instructions and one or more memory structures for storing program and data information. The term "processor circuitry" may refer to one or more application processors, one or more baseband processors, a physical Central Processing Unit (CPU), a single core processor, a dual core processor, a tri-core processor, a quad-core processor, and/or any other device capable of executing or otherwise operating computer-executable instructions (e.g., program code, software modules, and/or functional processes). The processing circuitry may include further hardware accelerators, which may be microprocessors, programmable processing devices, or the like. The one or more hardware accelerators may include, for example, computer Vision (CV) and/or Deep Learning (DL) accelerators. The terms "application circuitry" and/or "baseband circuitry" may be considered synonymous with "processor circuitry" and may be referred to as "processor circuitry".

The term "interface circuit" as used herein refers to, is part of, or includes circuitry that enables the exchange of information between two or more components or devices. The term "interface circuit" may refer to one or more hardware interfaces, such as a bus, an I/O interface, a peripheral component interface, a network interface card, and the like.

The term "user equipment" or "UE" as used herein refers to a device having radio communication capabilities and may describe a remote user of network resources in a communication network. The term "user equipment" or "UE" may be considered as synonyms for the following terms and may be referred to as they: a client, mobile station, mobile device, mobile terminal, user terminal, mobile unit, mobile station, mobile user, subscriber, user, remote station, access agent, user agent, receiver, radio, reconfigurable mobile device, etc. Furthermore, the term "user equipment" or "UE" may include any type of wireless/wired device or any computing device that contains a wireless communication interface.

The term "network element" as used herein refers to a physical or virtualized device and/or infrastructure for providing wired or wireless communication network services. The term "network element" may be considered as a synonym for and/or referred to as the following terms: networked computers, networking hardware, network devices, network nodes, routers, switches, hubs, bridges, radio network controllers, RAN devices, RAN nodes, gateways, servers, virtualized VNFs, NFVI, etc.

The term "computer system" as used herein refers to any type of interconnected electronic device, computer device, or component thereof. Furthermore, the terms "computer system" and/or "system" may refer to various components of a computer that are communicatively coupled to each other. Furthermore, the terms "computer system" and/or "system" may refer to a plurality of computer devices and/or a plurality of computing systems communicatively coupled to each other and configured to share computing and/or networking resources.

The terms "appliance," "computer appliance," and the like as used herein refer to a computer device or computer system having program code (e.g., software or firmware) specifically designed to provide a particular computing resource. A "virtual appliance" is a virtual machine image to be implemented by a hypervisor-equipped device that virtualizes or emulates a computer appliance or is otherwise dedicated to providing specific computing resources.

The term "resource" as used herein refers to a physical or virtual device, a physical or virtual component within a computing environment, and/or a physical or virtual component within a particular device, such as a computer device, a mechanical device, a memory space, a processor/CPU time, a processor/CPU usage, a processor and accelerator load, a hardware time or usage, power, input/output operations, ports or network sockets, channel/link allocations, throughput, memory usage, storage, networks, databases and applications, workload units, and the like. "hardware resources" may refer to computing, storage, and/or network resources provided by physical hardware elements. "virtualized resources" may refer to computing, storage, and/or network resources provided by the virtualization infrastructure to applications, devices, systems, etc. The term "network resource" or "communication resource" may refer to a resource that is accessible to a computer device/system via a communication network. The term "system resource" may refer to any kind of shared entity that provides a service and may include computing and/or network resources. System resources may be considered as a set of coherent functions, network data objects, or services that are accessible through a server, where the system resources reside on a single host or multiple hosts and are clearly identifiable.

The term "channel" as used herein refers to any transmission medium, whether tangible or intangible, used to communicate data or data streams. The term "channel" may be synonymous with and/or equivalent to the following terms: "communication channel," "data communication channel," "transmission channel," "data transmission channel," "access channel," "data access channel," "link," "data link," "carrier," "radio frequency carrier," and/or any other similar term that refers to a path or medium through which data is transferred. Furthermore, the term "link" as used herein refers to a connection between two devices via a RAT for transmitting and receiving information.

The terms "instantiate", "materialize", and the like as used herein refer to the creation of an instance. "instance" also refers to a specific occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, during execution of program code.

The terms "coupled," "communicatively coupled," and their derivatives are used herein. The term "coupled" may mean that two or more elements are in direct physical or electrical contact with each other, may mean that two or more elements are in indirect contact with each other but still cooperate or interact with each other, and/or may mean that one or more other elements are coupled or connected between elements that are considered to be coupled to each other. The term "directly coupled" may mean that two or more elements are in direct contact with each other. The term "communicatively coupled" may mean that two or more elements may be in communication with each other, including by wired or other interconnection connections, by wireless communication channels or links, and so forth.

The term "cell" refers to a structural element that contains one or more fields. The term "field" refers to the individual content of a cell, or a data element containing content.

The term "SMTC" refers to an SSB-based measurement timing configuration configured by SSB-measurementtiming configuration.

The term "SSB" refers to an SS/PBCH block.

The term "primary cell" refers to an MCG cell operating on a primary frequency in which a UE performs an initial connection establishment procedure or initiates a connection re-establishment procedure.

The term "primary SCG cell" refers to an SCG cell in which a UE performs random access when performing a synchronization reconfiguration procedure for DC operation.

The term "secondary Cell" refers to a Cell that provides additional radio resources over a special Cell for a UE configured with CA.

The term "secondary cell group" refers to a subset of serving cells for a UE configured with DC that includes zero or more secondary cells of PSCell and PSCell.

The term "serving cell" refers to a primary cell for a UE that is not configured with CA/DC in rrc_connected, and only one serving cell includes the primary cell.

The term "serving cell" or "plurality of serving cells" refers to a set of cells including a special cell and all secondary cells for a UE configured with CA/in rrc_connected.

The term "special cell" refers to the PCell of an MCG or the PSCell of an SCG for DC operation; otherwise, the term "special cell" refers to a Pcell.

Claims

1. An apparatus for hosting a network, comprising:

a memory for storing smart contract information associated with a localized service; and

processing circuitry, coupled with the memory, for:

deploying a smart contract for the localized service on a Blockchain (BC) network based on the smart contract information; and

providing configuration information associated with the localized service to a service provider to provision, modify or update service configurations at the hosted network; and

an indication of supported on-demand localized services is published via a Protocol Data Unit (PDU) session of an Internet Protocol (IP) connection provided by the hosting network based on a localized service policy in the smart contract.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuit is further to:

subscriptions to published on-demand localized services are received from the service provider.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the smart contract for the localized service allows creation and termination of web services for the localized service.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the smart contract for the localized service includes information associated with a smart contract-based service level agreement (SC-SLA), a network identifier, or a subscriber network setting for user authentication.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the smart contract for the localization service includes information associated with the published on-demand localization service.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the information associated with the published on-demand localization service comprises an indication of: network identifiers of service providers that provide the published on-demand localized services, dedicated PDU session information, user equipment routing policy (urs) rules, required service or application identifiers.

7. The apparatus of any of claims 1-6, wherein the processing circuit is further to:

access to the localization service or on-demand localization service published by the service provider is provided for a predetermined period of time or location area.

8. The apparatus of any of claims 1-7, wherein the apparatus comprises a policy and charging control framework or a portion thereof.

9. One or more computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause one or more functions of a policy and charging control framework to:

determining network policy configuration information associated with a localized service for a first network, wherein the network policy configuration information includes an indication of: unified Data Management (UDM) address information for UE authentication, or traffic routing policies;

configuring a network policy service of a second network using the network policy configuration information; and

an Application Programming Interface (API) is provided to a service provider to allocate information related to Protocol Data Unit (PDU) session parameters of an Internet Protocol (IP) connection for on-demand localization services.

10. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 9, wherein the information related to PDU session parameters of the IP connection comprises an indication of: the service identification of the on-demand localization service and corresponding human readable identification for the on-demand localization service, PDU session required for IP connection parameters, application information, user equipment routing policy (urs p) rules, on-demand localization service provider identifier, required service or network configuration for routing traffic to access the on-demand localization service.

11. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 9, wherein the network policy configuration information is to provide access to the localized service for a predetermined period of time or location area.

12. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 9, wherein the network policy configuration information comprises an indication of: spectrum resources, network slice allocation, default Protocol Data Unit (PDU) session for an Internet Protocol (IP) connection, or network service capability.

13. The one or more computer-readable media of any of claims 9-12, wherein the media further stores instructions for configuring the network policy service via an Application Programming Interface (API).

14. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 9, wherein the media further stores instructions for providing network identification information to the second network.

15. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 14, wherein the network identification information comprises an indication of a hosted network identifier or one or more localized service group identifiers.

16. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 9, wherein the media further stores instructions for providing information to the second network for discovering and using the localized services.

17. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 16, wherein the information for discovering and using the localized services comprises an indication of: authorization of the localized service, network identity information, or a localized service group identifier.

18. The one or more computer-readable media of any of claims 9-17, wherein the policy and charging control framework is implemented by a hosted network or a portion thereof.

19. One or more computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause one or more functions of a managed network to:

the service policy configuration information is provided to a service provider for accessing the on-demand localized service.

20. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 19, wherein the service policy configuration information includes a service identification of the on-demand localization service and a corresponding human-readable identification for the on-demand localization service.

21. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 19, wherein the service policy configuration information comprises network configuration information for routing the on-demand localized service from the hosted network to the service provider's network.

22. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 19, wherein the service policy configuration information comprises IP connection parameters.

23. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 19, wherein the service policy configuration information includes an application identifier associated with the on-demand localized service.

24. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 19, wherein the service policy configuration information comprises urs rules for traffic routing.